By Anne Duggan
Whitney Bogart
Goalball
Age: 30
# Paralympics: Second
Twitter: @whitneyb33
Amy Burk
Goalball
Age: 26
# Paralympics: Third
Twitter: @burkamy7
SCHEDULE
Fri, Sept. 9 CAN vs TUR, 8:15 a.m. ET
Sun. Sept. 11 CAN vs UKR, 12:30 p.m. ET
Mon. Sept. 12 CAN vs CHN, 5:15 p.m. ET
Tue. Sept. 13 CAN vs AUS, 1:30 p.m. ET
Wed. Sept. 14 Quarter-finals
Thu. Sept. 15 Semi-finals
Fri. Sept. 16 Medal matches
What happens on the goalball court stays on the goalball court. And that’s a good thing when it comes to Ottawa Paralympic athletes Amy Burk and Whitney Bogart.
“We can get mad at each other during a game but get over it really quick,” explains 30-year-old Bogart, who has been playing goalball for 15 years.
Along with being Burk’s teammate, Bogart is her close friend, her neighbor, and her sister-in-law.
With just three players for each team on the goalball court at a time, the pair often make up two-thirds of the Canadian team, with Burk playing the right wing position and Bogart on the left.
“I am one of the offensive players so I can throw more,” says Burk.
“The same for me,” adds Bogart. “Except that Amy throws better than I do.”
This closeness has created an advantage for the team when it comes to communication. In goalball, players are allowed to speak, as long as they are not throwing the ball.
“Whitney can say just the word ‘up’ and I know exactly what she means,” explains Burk, 26, who has been playing her sport since 2004.
Goalball has been an important thread in the lives of Burk and Bogart. Playing the sport internationally of course is a major focus in their lives, and it’s the source of their friendship, not to mention their husbands.
Whitney’s husband Jesse Bogart used to play goalball at the provincial level, while Tyler Burk, Amy’s husband/Whitney’s twin brother, is also a goalballer.
“I met Tyler at provincial goalball tournaments, but got to know him when he came to watch a tournament we were in back in 2006,” recounts Prince Edward Island native Burk, who was born with albinism (as was Bogart).
After a heartbreaking overtime defeat in the quarter-final round of the London 2012 Games, the pair figure they have an advantage entering this Paralympics in Rio: they are the underdogs instead of favorites.
“There was a lot of pressure in London. Our team centralized for three months (out of Algonquin College) before the Games. We were going in as the gold-medal threat,” recalls Burk, who missed out on her team’s Parapan Am Games bronze medal win because her visual impairment wasn’t deemed to meet Paralympic standards, though an appeal put her back in the mix this season.
Despite being just an overtime goal away from the medal round, the goalball team lost its funding from Own The Podium, and did not centralize in advance of Rio, though the six-member team has met up on many recent weekends at the Nepean Sportsplex.
“We still get funding through Sport Canada but it is not that gorgeous, delicious hunk of cash,” adds Burk, whose team is ranked 8th in the world heading into the Paralympics.
About Goalball
Played in a gymnasium by athletes with visual impairments using a ball with bells inside, each team has three players on the court at a time. The aim is to score by rolling the ball at speed into the opposition’s goal, while the opposition attempts to block the ball with their bodies.